Happy Birthday G1 aka HTC Dream

Today is the third birthday of first ever Android smartphone HTC Dream aka T-Mobile G1. It was released back in 2008 today i.e. October 22 in US followed by October 30th release in UK.

October 22 was the start of what we see all around us these days – over 190 million Android smartphones – over 500 different models – over 550,000 activations daily and so on.

Android as an operating system and community has come a very long way. It is time that we look back and bask in glory of what our favorite OS has achieved. Today is also important because only a few days back we saw the eighth major version of Android being released (may be ninth, if you count 1.1 or 2.0).

It does not happen every now and then that we see an operating system being born and capturing the market so fast. According to some estimates, Android is nearing 50pc of the global smartphone market share. Yes, it is big; Android has achieved this within three years of releasing the first smartphone. We might be lacking on the Tablet side, but situation will change soon.

On the app front also we have also come a long way. Today itself I heard about a report that claimed the Android Market now houses over 500,000 apps with more and more coming daily. Hardware-wise, Android has also reached TVs, Navigation Systems, Music Players, Washing Machines, and Refrigerators etc.

Android has such awesome community of developers and users who are always ready to help each other. It is the result of this great community only that we get updated custom firmwares for the smartphones that get dumped by manufacturers.

Watching Android grow from day one has been a great ride of my life personally and I sure many of our readers will also have followed this journey. So time to make a stop and enjoy the day.